Do We Really Need the Federal Government To Tell Us What Milk Is?
Everybody knows what almond, oat, and soy milk are. We don’t need the FDA’s intervention, no matter what the dairy lobby claims.
It appears that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is about to crack down on the labeling of nondairy milk products like almond and oat milks.
It's all part of the FDA's silly, condescending treatment of consumers that just so happens to benefit powerful, entrenched agriculture interests using the government to attack competitors.
Wired and Mother Jones report that, based on a draft policy produced by the FDA back in March that has not yet been made public, the agency is preparing to rule that the word "milk" on labels must be confined to animal products. If true, this would mean that almond milk would have to go by another name and cannot be marketed in such a way to suggest that it's similar to dairy milk.
Of course, there is no evidence that anybody is being tricked or fooled by nondairy milk. Nobody is buying it and consuming it by accident, at least not more than once. Nevertheless, representatives from the dairy industry have been lobbying the government for years now to try to get the FDA to do something about this growing competition. And some lawmakers in dairy-centric communities have been pushing for laws to control the use of the term.
A 2019 letter from the National Milk Producers Federation to the FDA shows what's really happening here is that greater numbers of substitute milk products have been coming to the market each year. And the dairy industry contends that consumers are "being misled about the nutritional content of plant-based imitators relative to real dairy products, creating marketplace confusion and inappropriately blurring well-defined standards of identity."
The nutritional contents of dairy milk are obviously different from the nutritional contents of nondairy milk, and the Federation argues that consumers don't understand this and many think that this "fake" milk is healthier and "more nutritious" than dairy milk. From a reasonable perspective, this would seem to be a matter of opinion or interpretation, but the Federation insists that their product is objectively healthier and that this "confusion," no joke, "creates a public health issue by causing harm to our nation's children and, potentially, other consumers."
While one definition of milk is a fluid excreted by an animal's mammary glands, it has for centuries also applied to some of these other substitutes. Almond milk may seem like a new trend, but it in fact dates back centuries.
It would, of course, be crass to blatantly demand that the federal government pursue a regulation just for the purpose of attempting to suppress a competitor, and so there are these attempts to manufacture a public health crisis over which drink is more "nutritious" and which, therefore, should have control over the term.
No, this makes no sense. But this is the result of allowing the federal government to control not only the labeling of the foods we consume but also the proper "identity" of those foods. We've seen the silliness of the FDA's overregulation of food contents in debates over what should be in French dressing and how many cherries should be in frozen cherry pies (and only frozen cherry pies).
In May, a small but bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the agency that would have received the FDA's guidance letter back in March, arguing that there's no justification for getting involved in a fight over what gets to label itself "milk." The authors, Sen. Cory Booker (D–N.J.), Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah), Rep. Julia Brownley (D–Calif.), and Rep. Nancy Mace (R–S.C.), note that the FDA does not use nutritional value as part of its "standards of identity" and point out that dairy milks can vary wildly in its contents based on the animal of origin.
"[The] FDA has not previously asked producers to disclose other wide variations in nutritional components—including among milks derived from different animals. Goat milk, for example, has less folate, zinc, riboflavin and vitamin B12 than cow milk. Buffalo milk has twice as much saturated fat as cow milk, as well as considerably more calcium," they write. They argue that it would be discriminatory to apply these standards to plant-based milks as a justification for regulating their labels if they're not going to do the same to animal milks.
We've seen examples of the dairy industry doing exactly this as well, though. In Florida, the state (encouraged by the dairy lobby) attempted to stop a small dairy company from calling its skim milk "skim milk" because it didn't add vitamin A to its skim milk. To be clear, the milk was the very definition of skim milk, but the state's standard of identity for it to legally be called "skim milk" required the added Vitamin A. The dairy company fought this attempt, with the assistance of the Institute for Justice, and eventually won in federal court.
If members of the dairy industry are so worried about the competition from the growth in plant substitutes, they can always buy an almond orchard and make their own brands. Using the federal government to try to police the product with absurd claims that there's a crisis and that people are being tricked is utter nonsense. These competitors market their products on the very fact that they aren't dairy milk. That's the whole point, and everybody knows it.
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Scott – We need chemist to tell us what milk is. Just like we need a biologist to tell us what a womyn is.
Biologist should be able to tell us what milk is too.
Psst! I think it comes out of womyns.
Bulls can give milk.
We probably don’t need it, but it’s a huge part of what the FDA does. All this labeling stuff. Kind of brings an interesting question to mind for me of, if they didn’t narrowly define milk as being milk from lactating animals, what would the actual definition of milk be? What would cover all these different categories inclusively?
milk
mĭlk
noun
A whitish liquid containing proteins, fats, lactose, and various vitamins and minerals that is produced by the mammary glands of all mature female mammals after they have given birth and serves as nourishment for their young.
The milk of cows, goats, or other animals, used as food by humans.
Any of various potable liquids resembling milk, such as coconut milk or soymilk.
Any of various potable liquids resembling milk, such as coconut milk or soymilk.
Would the FDA be able to say that the milk from milkweed is non-potable due to the concentrations of cardiac glycosides or no?
but what about milk of the poppy?
What about Milk of Magnesia?
Milk of human kindness?
Sure, that one is easy. My question was, what is a definition of milk that includes soymilk and coconut milk, almond milk, and cow’s milk, that isn’t endlessly expansive.
You’re making this too difficult. Soy milk is soy milk. Coconut milk is coconut mild. Almond milk is almond milk. They are all so labeled. We’re not stupid.
Exactly.
And that’s probably one of the less offensive things teh FDA does. Clear and consistent labeling is useful to consumers in many cases.
But as long as the package makes it clear that the plant “milks” are not dairy products of any kind, I don’t see a problem here. We don’t need the FDA acting as the Milk Marketing Board.
I actually would prefer it be more of a free for all. I think consumers having to deal with the consequences of their own lack of care makes better consumers.
But I agree, it is one of the less offensive aspects of the FDA. My point was one of pure intellectual whatever, which is, how do we define milk in a way that includes all the different things being sold as such?
Is it “white squeezings”?
If I was going to start Zeb’s Voluntary Labeling Standards Organization, I’d stick with “milk” meaning the conventional mammalian nutritional secretions and have “almond milk” etc. be their own terms with their own definitions.
You could go with nut milk… or is the populace’s head to far in the gutter for that? Nut pulp is accurate, but that’s been referred to as milk for longer than the FDA has existed.
We don’t need a single definition to cover all categories inclusively.
We’ve never needed that. No one is confusing cow milk for almond milk and more that they’re confusing peanut butter for dairy butter.
That must have been grandfathered in. They would never allow “peanut butter” today. It would have to be “peanut puree” or something.
Got no problem restricting milk definition to mammary secretions of mammals for their young.
As long as cow and other animal milk producers are honest about the normal size of their offspring.
So when dairy produces their milk mustache ad, it should be mandated to star a 500 pound human.
So typical. Your solution to bureaucratic overreach is more overreach elsewhere.
Fuck off, slaver.
Really? People who drink milk are likely to become hyper-obese? How fucking stupid are you?
Magnesia lobby hardest hit.
Natural latex industry hardest hit, but bounces back*.
This joke was produced with a combination of 100% natural and recycled materials.
But what is someone uses “milk” as formula!?
Their children should be taken away.
Almond Milk Food Substitute
Almonds don’t have nipples? Well I’ll be!
I’m against the proposed FDA regulations, but “buy your own almond orchard” was a particularly stupid point in opposition to the dairy industry. This “libertarian” trope needs to be put to bed.
I am still waiting for the FDA to crack down on florist shops that sell pussy willow.
*Contains no pussy
We don’t even know what a woman is, I can’t imagine we could define milk.
Nothing can be known about any category. The only thing we truly know is that anyone who doesn’t know what we know about how we can’t know things should be crushed.
It Is Known.
Get woke. Knowing is something to be determined by each person (well, each ideologically-favored person), about themselves or pretty much anything, based on whatever they feel in that moment, and cannot be challenged by others. In fact “knowing” might be suspiciously patriarchal and oppressive. You should use the term “identifying”.
Everyone is entitled to their own Truth in Labeling.
Forget soy and almond milks, the FDA tried to say unpasteurized skim milk couldn’t be called skim milk.
They’ve also done something similar with unfortified whole milk vs vitamin D fortified whole milk.
We don’t need the FDA’s intervention
We don’t need the FDA, period.
Some people are really milking everything they can from this article.
I’d say it’s 2% exaggeration and 1% hyperbole. And whole(ly) uncalled for.
This article is past the sell by date.
Blown whey out of proportion, that’s for sure.
How curd you?!
What a waste of time for everyone involved. People will purchase whatever they like to put in their cereal or drink. I call ‘J’ champagne, champagne even though it’s not from the French region Champagne. I’m gonna go buy some oat milk whatever
Yes, a lot of the FDAs standards are silly, even illogical. On the other hand, I do think there is a government interest in preventing fraud. In the case of milk substitutes, they have to be clearly labeled as such without banning the usage of the word “milk” entirely.
Now we have the internets.
5 star reviews are the new FDA seal.
What fraud are they protecting us from?
When the FDA was created, there were a number of problems with adulterated foods.
We are talking about now – what fraud would the FDA defining ‘milk’ be protecting us from?
Better stop talking about “mother’s milk” as something you really enjoy. It’s NOT mother’s milk unless it’s milk from a mother.
Don’t even get me started on peanut butter. Not a speck of butter in it.
Cotton candy — it’s not cotton!! Where is the National Cotton Council?
I have seen beauty pageant winners who were pretty ugly.
“Pretty ugly” is a contradiction in itself.
The government regulating how food language is used, feels exactly like the government sniffing out disinformation. Wholly inadequate and mispurposed for the job.
Cotton candy — it’s not cotton!! Where is the National Cotton Council?
You’ve confused regular undies with edible undies haven’t you?
Milo. Catch-22.
So the US FDA is dicking around with what food substances qualify as “milk”? Meh. Try the CCP and their determinations of milk, including liquid melamine.
The FDA is made up of amateurs.
Here in Florida we had a state ruling that milk from which the cream was skimmed (and only that) was NOT skim milk.
To legally be “skim milk” artificial vitamin D had to be added.
Really pissed of the organic dairy that refused to add artificial stuff and wanted to sell skim milk as skim milk.
This just screams for a clever marketing campaign.
Smiling actor/actress/non-binary theater person with creamy oat milk mustache.
Not Milk?
Ironic really. Milk has always enjoyed a fairly sordid commercial history. The mid 19th century was the time of “swill milk”. Unscrupulous businesses ( quite a few) were taking low quality “swill milk” and adding in various whiteners to deceive consumers. Thousands of infants died. A key driver of the 1906 Food and Drug Act was owing to widespread the widespread adulteration of swill milk. The FDA was, essentially, started based on the definition of milk.
The drive for change was strong. So defining the composition of milk was important. And milk was defined as lacteal secretions coming from otherwise healthy cows on a normal grass or grain diet. The color, odor, taste and later the chemical composition (fat, protein, liquid, solids) were all defined. And for good reason since to define an adulterant one has to define the product that is being referenced. As a result “milk” has a well-described regulatory definition. It also has defined grades. That is a controlling fact for how it is used (for drinking or for cheese products) or when determining whether a milk product has been adulterated or altered in a defined manner (eg making cheese or dried milk products).
It certainly seems laughable to be arguing about the semantics of animal or plant based milk, but from a definitional point of view there is no contest. The more colloquial use of the words are just that, colloquial. Milk has a defined terminology and consumers should not have to split semantic hairs. And the splitting will happen when someone comes along and says that they have an animal milk product made without cows.
A noun can have more than one word in it. It’s called a “noun phrase”. “Almond milk” is a noun phrase different from “milk”. Ask an English teacher.
FDA is UN-Constitutional…
F’En Nazi’s…
If anyone believes they have been mis-advertised let them take it to their LOCAL court on faulty advertising charges.
And demand a jury trial.
This article is displaying embarrassing ignorance about the history of food regulation and the development of brands.
Both were a direct response to… drum roll please… 19th century scandals about the adulteration of milk.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/19th-century-fight-bacteria-ridden-milk-embalming-fluid-180970473/
If you are criticising the consumer protections surrounding milk, you are criticising the entire structure of consumer protections enshrined in law.
If that was done with knowledge of what it meant, you’d be arguing that any number of deaths – and it was quite a lot – is worth it to avoid ‘gubment interference’. Even in such seemingly open and shut cases as, y’know, stopping people poisoning children with formaldehyde in their milk.
Alternatively, you’re just ranting about something you know nothing about, and making yourself look like the kind of person who doesn’t do even the most basic research before pontificating about their hot-take-of-the-day.
I stopped reading at “Do We Really Need the Federal Government…”
legalize raw milk and forget the rest of this nonsense.
Almond milk has been called that for many hundreds of years. In the Middle Ages, milk from animal sources was forbidden on certain days, and almond milk was the usual substitute.
I speak as one born, raised, and currently living in Wisconsin.